Tag Archives: Joe Bob Briggs

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In 1993, Monstervision on Turner Network Television in America was mostly a program that aired old horror movies and science fiction with the occasional hosting from magicians Penn and Teller. During the early nineties, many cable channels hadn’t yet solidified their formats, so a lot of the time slots were used on syndicated programs and adult programming, with the occasional time slot devoted to a rare original program here and there. Mainly though, the original appeal of cable television was watching old movies and television shows you couldn’t find on network television. To break up the monotony of airing the same movies over and over, they enlisted hosts to riff during commercial breaks.

It’s important that we look back on the history of physical media, since the beginning of physical media for movie collectors was never Hollywood’s biggest plan. Since the creation of the home reel projector, studios have been working hard to fight the appeal of physical media, and now with its decline, we’re reverting to digital copies of films that can be monitored. With its introduction, comes the potential decline of honest independent filmmaking, and filmmakers that have an even playing field with Hollywood. That becomes an uphill battle as the physical media that does exist is nothing but overstocked Hollywood dribble, with stores openly refusing to stock independent cinema.

Happy Friday the 13th. If you’re the superstitious kind, you might want to avoid this list entirely, as I list thirteen random facts about “Friday the 13th.” Perhaps you might learn something new about your friendly neighborhood movie critic.

You might also be surprised to see how much of an influence “Friday the 13th” and Jason Voorhees has had on my life.

For other documentaries about the VHS resurgence and the nearing end of physical media, a lot of directors have spent their time trying to figure out where it all began and celebrate the idea of the VHS boom of the modern era. “VHS Massacre” seems to be standing in ground zero of the end of physical media and trying to figure out where it’s all going, rather than where it all began. For many of us that have reveled in the new wave of VHS appreciation, we all know how it began. VHS won over Beta, despite the latter have more quality simply because VHS had more appeal to its product. It cost less, the tapes stored more footage, and porn became almost exclusive to the format. But with the rise of digital media, VHS has gone the way of the dodo, now relegated to good will bins and mom and pop stores deep in small towns and counties.

“Dead in Concert” is one of the rare comedy specials starring John Bloom as his iconic character Joe Bob Briggs. Briggs himself is a politically incorrect character who revels in embracing stereotypes for the purpose of ironically mocking them. He mocks religion, race, gender, politics, and even speaks about growing up in a small town where dirt was a way of life. Briggs is not one to shy away from being offensive and has a good time making his audience squirm and laugh at some of the most inappropriate jokes. In one instance he royally pisses of an audience member who gazes at him angrily.

One of my favorite movie blogs “Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule” recently posted their annual horror quiz in celebration of Halloween, and I was more than happy to take part in it. Their quizzes are usually a lot of fun and ask some interesting questions for their users that allow for an interesting article, so I thought I’d take part in yet another fun Movie Quiz that could inspire some thoughts on my favorite in horror entertainment and fiction. SLIFR is never bereft of interesting questions that cause its players to think hard and long, so I tackled this with immense enthusiasm.

It’s the last book from Joe Bob Briggs, and for his final outing in the publishing world, he follows up “Profoundly Disturbing” with the equally excellent “Profoundly Erotic.” The final book reviews a series of erotic movies, all of which aren’t exactly pornographic or erotica per se. They’re instead very adult films that deal with sexual politics and the undertones of sexual repression. As usual Joe Bob Briggs is as insightful and informative as ever, and it was ultimately a breezy read to finish.

Joe Bob Briggs is a well of horror knowledge, and in “Profoundly Disturbing,” he is filled with amazing stories about some of the most game changing films in movie history. He re-visits the grindhouse and the drive-in once again to profile some truly incredible and unique films. Rather than explain why the movies altered cinema, he also discusses interesting facts about their productions and the odd effects they had on pop culture. Did you know on “The Exorcist” that the actress who could projectile vomit sued the studio for not crediting her as the vomiter? Did you also know Ellen Burstyn had at least five different stage names before she was Ellen Burstyn?